A Wish in the Dark: Chapters 13–25

I wanted to use my gift to help people, to wish away all the pain and suffering in this world. But it was arrogant of me to think that I alone could save the whole world. And my gifts went awry.

Now the monk did glance up at her, just for an instant. It was long enough for her to see a flicker of defiance in his eyes.

A lanky monk whirled around the corner and stumbled toward them, panting.

The way she looked at him, with those keen blackbird eyes.

Nok and her parents stood in the temple courtyard, a sprawling jackfruit tree shielding them from the afternoon sun.

Behind her, back at the temple, she could hear the hubbub of voices.

An enormous stone statue of the Buddha sat cross-legged and serene near one wall of the cave.

If Nok hadn't been on her guard, she would have bowed in reverence.

A crusted rope, stained green from months of trailing off the barge's hull, forgotten.

Before, it seemed that your father merely lost a boy under his care. Now it's clear the boy escaped! And not only that, but he fooled a monk and was hiding right under your father’s nose. Escaped—twice! Even if they can prove the boy drowned, this whole thing has made our family look like incompetent fools!

Manit always found him setting his traps in these stagnant back canals.

The shore teemed with their families. There were too many people for Pong to get out where he was.

Those on foot squeezed onto the narrow wooden gangways that hung suspended over the water on either side or the skinny alleys that crisscrossed the tracts of land between canals.

The boys dove into the rowdy throng of the entertainment district. Pong had never felt more exposed in his life, but there were so many people and so many distractions that nobody gave him a second look.

“And try not to look like such a country bumpkin, okay?"

“My friend,” said Somkit, slapping Pong on the shoulder, “welcome to the Mud House, the finest burned-out tenement building in the whole city.”

The Great Fire had burned away the entrances to each room, leaving behind a warren of square cubbies.

“Welcome to my humble castle! Make yourself at home.”
Pong stepped into a room not much bigger than his tiny one back at the temple.

He thought of Nok, her piercing blackbird eyes and the vengeful way she'd looked at him before he leaped from the cliff into the water.

The poor woman was still so distraught over Pong that she didn’t do much besides weep, anyway.

With a pang of sadness, Nok remembered that Father Cham had passed away the night Pong disappeared.

The little shed was lined to the ceiling with shelves full of nuts and bolts, wires, tools, jars filled with shards of glass and broken bits of sheet metal. A wood slab of a desk was also covered in the same array of junk.

Pong picked up a strand of small orbs, the same kind that hung from the rafters inside.

Somkit had been the most bullied kid at Namwon, teased relentlessly for being weak and small.

The last few days in the Mud House had been almost unbearably stifling. The thought of seeing something beyond the dark walls of the building was tempting, and Somkit made the Light Market sound like heaven.

Pong's right hand instinctively flew to his left wrist.

“Just smile and walk on through, like the upstanding young man you are.”

A singer on a bandstand in the center of the hallway crooned, “Take my hand, oh, my darling, take my hand and dance with me...”

Here, away from the loud music, Pong could hear the orbs buzzing more distinctly. He realized for the first time that each color of orb buzzed at a slightly different pitch.

Pong pretended to look shocked and said in a very upper-crust voice, “I beg your pardon, but it's the Junior Patrol creed to give out at least three compliments every day.”